On the 14th of june Dave Young his talk on the cold war history of weather prediction and control. The talk was held outside on the Department Of Search's forum on the Geneveplein

Part of the methodolgy of Dave Youngs approach is to re-evaluate bureaucratic and administrative documents as they become declassified in a research project called rereadme. Rereadme is a "series of essays, each oriented around an extract from an administrative document collected from US defense and intelligence agency archives. The historical and political contexts of reports, memoranda, technical manuals are unpacked and analysed as instruments of institutional power, "illuminating the often recessive yet impactful role they play as mediators".

His talk is published as two separate texts that can be found here and here

After the lecture the group went back to the keet in order to do some observations. While the sun was still out we did so by radio frequency, as the sun set into the night, the satellites could be spotted with the naked eye.

Reception from the spacekeet on Whit Monday, the 5th on june 2017. While that day the campus was fully deserted the the hertzian space on the campus is as filled as ever. There are many signals between 136 - 138Mhz, most of them seem to be industrial control systems or pagers of some kind. These cause a lot of interference when trying to pick up the odd satellites that happen to transmit on those same frequencies.

Very noisy and 'low' afternoon pass. One can distinguish, Spain in the bottom right corner. When the satellites pass 'low' that means they are low on the horizon and not directly overhead. The time the signal can be received and the strength with which it can be received are thus reduced.

This is an example of a 'high' pass. One can clearly distinghuish Europe and Northern Africa. At the top one can see the landmass of Greenland. This is the NOAA 15 satellite.

Another relatively long but noisy pass at 7 in the evening. NOAA-19

Evening pass of one of the NOAA satellites. Mostly the atlantic ocean. By the low sun casting long shadows one can see it is an evening pass.

General Orientation

Thursday the 1st of june the spacekeet will mark the beginning of the spacekeet programme. The main dish will be assembled onto the roof, oriented towards the south, angled towards the GEO orbit, the systems tested and hopefully the first signals received! You can drop by from 12:00 onwards and come and say hi!

The first of june also marks the opening of the Department of Search have a look at the full programme of guided tours here.

After perforating the radials I assembled everything on the mounting plate to see how it would fit.

The small tubes are filed to size in order to support the curvature of the radials.

For a neater finish and better grip I made sure all the screws would sink into the front plate.

Everything assembled, including the strips to hold down the wire-mesh and the cross-bars. These rods are clamped in between the radials and kept in place using small pins that fit inside the rod. These cross-bars lock into place and add rigidity to the whole construction, in addition to adding more parabolic curve to the wire-mesh.

To cut the wire mesh a template was first made by tracing the shape on paper.

Not a bad idea to confirm the template was wide enough to accommodate the small differences in spacing between each of the petals.

After that the wire mesh was cut to size. Twelve petals to be mounted between the radials.

The wire mesh is fastened with screws between the radial and a piece of flat strip. The pieces of mesh overlap on each side.

Screws per radial: 7

Amounts of petals: 12

84 bolt and nuts in total.

It is through sheer pain and exhaustion that one fully appreciates why most designs use rivets.
This design can be fully disassembled though.

On the 17th of june Anastasia Kubrak will give a talk on her book ‘A Guide to Satellite Surveillance’, addressing the cultural and political implications of imaging satellites.
The talk will start at 17:00 and will be held on the forum of the Department Of Search.

A Guide To Satellite Surveillance

Despite the omnipresence of satellite imagery in mass media, the satellites themselves remain mysterious and unknown for non-scientific public. ‘A Guide to Satellite Surveillance’ aims to demystify their presence and gives the obscure objects a tangible representation. A book portrays currently operating high-resolution optical satellites in the context of recent political events, commercial ownership and governmental censorship. By highlighting moments when certain satellites have played a significant role in media, the project aims to address the hidden ideologies behind the production of satellite imagery.

Anastasia Kubrakis a designer and researcher from Moscow. In her work she focuses on politics of emerging technologies, proposing tangible ways to engage in complex narratives. She graduated cum laude from Design Academy Eindhoven with a project ‘A Guide to Satellite Surveillance’, which got selected as The Best of Dutch Design Week’ 16.